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Gender Stereotypes In 'Legally Blonde'

788 Words4 Pages

Daisy Trejo
CMTM 160-3
December 3, 2015

Gender Stereotypes in “Legally Blonde” “Legally blonde” is a comedy drama, based on the book written by Amanda Brown, about a tall, blonde, blue-eyed sorority girl, Elle Woods played by Reese Whiterspoon. Elle is a college senior excited to take the next step in life, marriage. Excitedly expecting her college boyfriend to ask her to marry him, but he breaks up with her instead, saying that he has to be with someone more "serious" if he plans on a career in politics. When he is describing his reasons for breaking up with Elle he says: “I need to marry a Jackie not a Marilyn.” Desperate to win him back, Elle applies to Harvard, with a ridiculous video essay, and to my surprise they are impressed, and she is accepted. Upon her arrival, she is ridiculed because of her beautiful, overly-girly looks and naive behavior. Two years later, Elle, who has graduated with high honors, is the class-elected speaker at the ceremony, and has been invited into one of Boston 's best law firms. After humiliation in her academic and social life she is able to overcome anything thrown her way. Elle’s gender roles and attitude changed dramatically throughout the course of the story. In the beginning of the movie, Elle was portrayed as “sexual woman.” One of the reasons that she was accepted to Harvard was because she wore a bikini in her admission video and because of her looks. The film does condemn the stereotype that all men think they are better

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